SUPPLIERPROFILE
BY HANA MEDINA
CANNED CHICKEN IS a quick and easy
ingredient to have on hand for lunches,
salads and other quick meals for a hit of
protein. But don’t think that just because
it’s a quick ingredient that it’s made in
haste. In fact, Costco’s Kirkland Signature™ Premium Chunk Chicken Breast is
made by Crider Foods, a family business
that’s been in the poultry industry for six
decades and has provided Costco’s pri-vate-label canned chicken since ;;;;.
The legacy of Crider Foods starts in
;;;;, when founder and CEO Billy Crider’s
parents entered the food business. “My
mother and father started a fish market
in Douglas, Georgia, and they started buy-
ing and selling chickens along with the
fish market, and it expanded from there,”
Crider tells The Connection. “We later
built a larger poultry plant and started the
poultry industry in the area.”
Crider says he grew up working in the
business, because “that’s just what you
did.” In ;;;;, the family decided to sell the
plant to Flowers Industries, which at the
time was a small company based in the
Southeast. The family stayed involved in
Flowers, forming its convenience food
division, and that was where Crider got
his first experiences in canning.
A fresh start
Crider decided to leave the company
in ;;;; to start his own canning opera-
tion in Stillmore, Georgia, the current
headquarters of Crider Foods. “I thought
I did better working on my own than I did
for someone else,” he says.
The company started off as a poultry
processor only; canning was added to the
operation in the mid-;;;;s. Today, Crider
Foods is no longer a live poultry processor,
but instead has evolved into a leading
manufacturer of canned and fully cooked
frozen food items.
A fire in ;;;; devastated the business,
and the plant had to be rebuilt from the
ground up. Crider reopened the canning
operation in ;;;;, and five years ago Crider
Foods revamped its facilities again.
“We made a ;;; million investment
in upgrading our plant and put in a very
automated, very safe process to do canned
chicken. It’s probably more automated and
safer than anybody [else] in the business,”
says Billy.
Automatic quality
Crider Foods’ facility is so state-of-the-art that after the raw product is inspected,
it does not come into human contact again
until it reaches the consumer. Today, its
campus comprises plants producing
fully cooked frozen and canned products,
with each process (cooking, canning, labeling and warehousing) accomplished via
automated systems.
Automatic measures are also in place
to ensure food safety. Mark Howell,
executive vice president of Crider
Foods, gives some examples: “We
have a label verification system that
reads the code on the bottom of the
can, and it compares the bar codes
on the label that’s being applied,
and if those two don’t match, it
stops the line, so that helps to make
sure you don’t have any concerns that
you’re mislabeling product. We also have
systems in the line that look for foreign
material in both the raw product and finished cans. We have a lot of systems to constantly measure quality and food safety.”
Billy Crider adds that the company
exceeds government requirements for
inspecting the seals of their cans, which
keeps canned foods fresh and safe.
While the company and its facilities
have earned many recognitions for quality, Crider Foods is most proud of its Level
; certification from the Safe Quality Foods
Institute, the highest food safety standard
in the industry, measuring not only food
safety, but also quality.
Today, Crider Foods produces enough
canned products each year to wrap halfway around the world. Crider says his ultimate goal is to get those cans “to wrap all
the way around the world.” Their products
can be found in every country where
Costco does business.
Next time you open a can of Kirkland
Signature Premium Chunk Chicken
Breast, you can rest assured that you’re
opening a can of hard work, pride and
ingenuity. C
COMPANYINFO
COMPANY Crider Foods
FOUNDER AND CEO
Billy Crider
EMPLOYEES 450
HEADQUARTERS Stillmore, GA 30464
WEBSITE
criderfoods.com
PHONE 1-800-342-3851
ITEMS AT COSTCO Kirkland Signature
Premium Chunk Chicken Breast (all locations, also available on Costco.com); Kirkland
Signature Premium Roast Beef in Beef Broth
(availability varies by location, also available
on Costco.com); Harvest Creek Shredded
Buffalo Chicken & Pulled Pork (availability
varies by location)
QUOTE ABOUT COSTCO
“Costco’s high quality standards have made
us become a better packer. And our relationship with Costco has made us a more competitive supplier overall. We feel fortunate to
have the relationship with them, and we feel
very comfortable [that] we put out the best.”
—Billy Crider, founder and CEO
Crider
house
rules
Crider family produces quality
chicken for Kirkland Signature
©LO
RI
GRI
CE
.C
OM
Left to right: Bill Crider III,
Crider founder and CEO Billy
Crider and executive vice
president Mark Howell.
sure you don’t have any concerns that
